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Saturday, 10 May 2014

My Freedom Your Servitude

As the pressures on our
various budgets increase and as more demands are made with apparently reducing
means of paying for them some intriguing stories popped up. In places where major concessions were made
in the past those who make decisions now have some awkward choices.

This
tale of woe and misery comes from the People's Republic of South Yorkshire
namely Barnsley where in the Age of Blunkett and Scargill back in the 1980's
the locals were showered with gifts if not exactly from the gods then from
those on local authorities who believed that Stalin was the Almighty.

The article is just a
little one sided and omits some things that might be said. There had been free rail passes for
pensioners to travel at all times. This
has been taken back to parallels with the national scheme. But the Senior Railcard option, at a modest
fee, is not mentioned.

One thing that raised both
eyebrows was referring to the Library cuts where it is said that retired
teachers and lawyers had suffered.
Teachers have had a national pension scheme, a quite reasonable final
salary one with early retirement options.

So anyone with long enough
service could well have one of around the average national weekly earnings with
provision for widows as well. As for
lawyers to be numbered among the poverty stricken one can only wonder. Is the local population really so law abiding
and free of legal disputes?

If you look at the numbers
closely enough it is not quite a mass movement, more of a collection of local
Left wing interests in a district noted for hard left Labour sympathies. It would take a long blog to deconstruct what
this is all about, just use your critical faculties.

It does encapsulate on a
small scale the problems facing any government coming into power. For decades the goodies were given out
believing that boom after boom would pay for it all and the rich could be taxed
to the hilt.

Now the costs of all this are
rising and rising and most of the rich have made other arrangements. So the people who have to pay are more and
more not just the middling orders as the media suggests but the ordinary people
who do work in basic jobs and who are caught in the tax net.

If you are in the lower
ranges of income and find yourself trying to travel to work, it must be
difficult if you find the train is full of "Freedom Riders" who do
not pay, occupy the seats, and have the spare to "boost consumer
spending" while you are paying for them and finding it hard, very hard, to
cover your living costs.

Is it any wonder that so
many of the younger generations, notably those who have to work have given up
on government and voting?